---------------------------------///------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------::;;;;;;zz///||----_----------------------------|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|--------
------------------------::;;;z////||-..CCI____CC---------------------| BLB-DRAFT-DIARY |--------
---------------------------.///||||---_MMM””Mmc----------------------|~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|--------
----------------------------z--mN...XXXXXXxMMM--------------------------------------------------
-----------------------MMIm..XIIiiiiiXXXXXXXX----------------------------.,,--------------------
---.yy---..y---.......mmmLm--xiiiiiiXXXXXXxOxxxx------------------..,,,,,,,,,,,,,---------------
.y---y---..yy..y---------YL----..XXXvvvVVVVV.xxxxx--------------,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,------------
---.y---y---yy-------ywwww-YLnnnwwwwVVccccccc,,,-----------..,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,-------
wwwwwwwwwwwwyywwwwwwwww---wwwwwwwwwwwwwwWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,x
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwywwwwwwwww---.wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWwww,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,xxx
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwywwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwyyyyywwwwwwwwwwWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWww-----...........x

CURRENT WIN PERCENTAGE::65%

Azorious Rabbits BloomBurrow W3/L3/D1
when drafting.
I thought a lot about win conditions, bombs and removal in this deck. I kept my mana curve in my head and made picks based on it, as well as looking both for synergies and cards I knew to be good. I even tried to get a sense of the colours I maybe did want to spec into, and what colours weren't on the market for me. I felt a severe dropoff in green in pack 2, and decided to move away from it. I even saw some cards in white, like baninishing light, that after seeing that a little later in the pack, I think pick 6 or seven, I thought "oh, I should lean into white, this primo removal spell would've been picked up earlier if more ppl were in white" which I think is kinda advanced.
I think having a better idea of what are the best cards for the deck I was trying to make would have been good, so like, doing a ranking or something, as well as getting into the zone earlier. I need to be able to have fun, but also be focussing closely on what Im picking and the deck Im making.

when building.
So, the construction of this deck, I think, was a little weak. My gameplan was very solid I think (etb triggers and blink effects, and homestead bunnies as my main blink target, then either rabbit response or caretakers talent to close out the game) but it lacked card draw to keep up the pace. I found myself topdecking A LOT. And whilst I had carddraw in there, it was conditional conditional card draw, like I needed creatures on the field to bounce or something. I probably could have done with more of those Bellowing Criers, I only had one. That being said, I don't think I would've done well with like, a straight up card draw spell.
Also please remember to pile shuffle lol, too many times did I draw 3 lands in a row.

when playing.
Quite a few games were played optimally I think. This was mostly because in the games where I didn't have a lot of gas I was topdecking, and its pretty easy to decide what to keep and throw away. There were a few hands I think could've done with a mulligain, mostly hands that had like, a creature and an enchantment that didnt really work together, or one time I had Valley Questcaller and a frog and 4 lands and some removal spell. Like, sure I'm gonna curve out, but if I play a 2/3 on turn 2, then a 2/3 on turn 3 with no interraction, you can probably ship that hand. I was favouring heavy lander hands cuz I wanted to make sure I had the mana to get out Homestead as soon as possible, but Im not sure that was the right move. I need to spend more of my opponents turns thinking about boardstate. I did have some time to think to myself and be like "what cards help me here, what cards do I want to draw right now".
Finally, I played against some "this is my first ever draft" and "Im only just getting into magic" games, so I suspect my deck was actually much worse than the games say. what I'd like to figure out more is *why* I lose. Im not sure how to answer that question tho.

Boros Valliant Mice W6/L1/D0

when drafting
- pack 1 pick 1 mabel feels risky. if I didn't get as man mice as I did, or if red/white was in short supply for the rest of the draft, perhaps I could've gone for something safer that didn't force me not only into boros, but also into mice as well. I'll have to do some more research into what you should first pick, and maybe not be blinded by the rare. although she is a pretty good card in the 4 quadrants, being either a 3 mana two for one, OR a 5 mana 4/4 trample vig, haste, which is pretty good. so maybe theres an argument to take her, and maybe splash her if the stars don't align.
- I maintained a really good idea of what the deck looked like in my head through the whole draft, and I picked up removal and protection, which maybe should put a P into the Bread acronym (brpead?). crumb and get it is a VERY good card.
- I was able to smell what colours were being picked a lot. Like green was basically gone for me, as was white in packs 2 n 3 (good thing I picked up 2 blinding lights in pack 1) and red remained pretty open, allowing me to snag some pretty nice aggro cards
- I think my card evaluation was pretty good too. big picks in blacksmiths talent. and very strategically picked my non mouse creatures (shrike force my beloved)
- finally, my pack 3 pick 3 was kitsa, which I got for 2 reasons, 1. seems powerful, maybe if blue is open I splash?? 2. I saw another Kitsa I passed, and I did not want that otter player to have 2. there also wasn't much in that pack for me otherwise, so probably the best bet?

when building
Not much to say here, pretty straightforward deck. I did have a sideboard of some more creature target things if I felt like Valiant wasn't being triggered enough, but honestly I never touched them.

In play
Ok lots to talk about

I kept a track of parity, of gamestate,and resources each player had. I think I can do better to be calculating damage and working out optimal blocks in my head on my opponents turn.
I played slowly, despite my fast deck, I said "gimmie a sec to think" multiple times which helped slow myself down a lot, which is great.
I am particularly proud of 2 specific hands in two of the games. In one, I was unafraid to mulligain, not seeing the play and wanting a faster hand w moer stuff to do. In the other, I intentionally kept a much slower hand. This was calculated, as the deck I was up against I knew I had to beat in the midgame and wasn't going to outrace. That Im proud of cuz a 3 lands and a mana rock I might've shipped otherwise, but I had a proper plan and a good idea of what enemy's deck did.
I think there were a few misplays, one I definitely remember is playing a creature in my first main phase, which is a bit silly. and I also had the choice of playing two pretty similar creatures, but one of them left it very obvious I had something in my hand, where the other would have kept that info much more obscure.
I also wanna talk about how LUCKY I got a few times, especially with who I was up against. My first opponent was a much slower deck than I was, and so these low to the ground mice were really able to run them over. Then my second match was against another more midrange-y deck without a lot of big creatures, which my deck beat as well. I will say that winning against the final enemy (selesnya rabbits) who had also ran over their enemies in sub 10 minute rounds it does make me feel a bit better about what I put together, but its lucky I didn't go up against anything faster which put me in a worse position for potential losses.
I also wanted to talk about something kinda strange I noticed. When I was winning, all of my choices almost felt effortless, like I didn't need to think hard about targets and attacks it all just flowed well. (I will say even when I was winning I was thinking about what cards I could draw that could end the game right away. that led to one, not a misplay, but a misread of the board where I was like "one more pump spell on my shrike force and Ive got lethal, I drew the pump spell, but enemy cracked a food to survive. I mean it was still the right play, but yaknow, missed that food). And then, when I was losing or in parity, I felt all my manouevers much more, and had to make much harder decisions. I think even if Im in a winning position, I can't just do what feel sright,I need to keep my guard up and think about what happens next.
I also had a few crazy lucky topdecks that won me the game, so don't discount that. Altho I will say, both times I won off of a topdeck,I literally had the thought "if I draw x, I win right now Im 99% sure" which is certainly something.

ok sp its crazy late at night but I had thoughts on the draft. W5/L3/D0
I played simic frogs (yayyyyy) and I came second, first game won 2 lost 1, 2nd game won 2 lost 0, 3rd game won 1 lost 2. had a great time. anyways so I have thoughts. first of all polywallop was vary good and I passed it and should have picked up a second one. Secondly I was not only thinking about my deck and thinking about bombs with mockingbird and dreamdew entrance but thinking about how I'd beatdown and it was with flying birds that was good. I also even during the draft thought about my mana curve and made decisions towards making that make more sense. mad about that pollywallop miss tho the deck mighta been so crazy with that. yeah other than that I felt like I had a really good sense of what people were in and out of. Black was SUUUUUPER open for a while and like that was great cuz I did take some black cards even tho I never went into it, including some squirrels. I bet with a bit more food generators I would've had kind of a sick golgari deck too, but with dreamscape enchanter like it was frogs all the way baybeeee. pack 3 really helped cuz that's where I got the two bounce frogs which were really importants for that line where its like turn 2 pond prophet turn 3 bounce frog turn for 2 pond prophets.
building was good had a bit of a sideboard but correctly estimated that my 2 3/3 fliers and a buncha 3/4 frogs were good enough beatdown. had some nice protection in there too for combat tricks n shit. I really had a game plan going in, like I was aware of my sort of creature controlly nature without a lot of interaction where I'd just block n stall n not do shit and then eventually my opponent would run out of gas and I'd be bouncing shit to just get started. also the way I build my deck I could dig REALLY DEEP. one game I dug so deep (3 cahce grabs) that I literally had 6 cards left in the library. anyways with that and the pond prohphet and the two of the 2/1 blue frogs I had a lot of chances to look for dreamdew,mockingbird, and like a few bouncers and that was normally enough to take out the game.
I had some weird card whoopsies but I think I played well. Im starting to do a really good job and playing around removal and combat tricks and even played a card to force out a counter while keeping an even better creature in the bank that was really cool. ultimately I lost bcause of my lack of removal and again maybe that last pollywallop would have won me the game but I had Tomas on 3 fkn life and the dude just had enough blockers I couldn't get thru that last point of damage, was a pretty grindy game tho and he had some cards that really rewarded just sitting around generating value, so with more interaction maybe I could've done it. Outside of that tho I think I performed really well once I understood the lines of the frog deck ok love u gniiiight. The point I wanted to say is that the second draft especially, but also the first one, felt like I was going up against people who were quite a bit less experienced at the game than I was, which I could really feel in how they played and the decks they'd built and things like that. just it felt quite unfair that I had managed to put together this good deck and could play it with a modicum of skill, where I was going off against mid selesnya decks and a kind of shitty dimir rats pile. And because of these easy wins I felt like I had kind of cheated my way to the finals. However, on thinking about it, I think its good to remember that I 100% used to be not good at this game, and its thru the work I've put in thats helped me be good. So even if Im pwning noobs, lol, that still counts as a small victory, as it shows that I have gotten at least somewhat better. Altho the satisfying games are the ones against someone more hardcore, like Tomas.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!//#########################/!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!\\|||###\\!!!!
!!|-------------|!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/#############################\!!!!!!!!!!CC!!!!!!!!|##########
!!| DRAFT-DIARY |!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/#################################\!!!!!!CCCC!!!!!!/############
!!| ~~~~OTJ~~~~ |!!!!!!!!!!!!/!!!!!!!!!!!!!!\########################^^^CC^^^^--//##############
!!| ~~EDITION~~ |!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!|###############################################
!!|-------------|!!!!!!!!!=xxS!!!!!!!::::::::ww::###############################################
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!{/WWw!!:::::WW::::::WWW::::::/##WW/!//######################/!!!\#######
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WWW\!:::/WWWW\::|WWWWW\:::|==WWW|#/!!!!!!/#############\!!!!!!!!\!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WWWw:::/WWWWW\::|WWWWWW::::\WWWWW\:::::!!/=###########|!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WW!!!!/:WWWW\://:WWww\:|WWWWWW\:::://WWW\w\::::!###########^###/!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!/WWW!!!/WWWw|:|:|wWWWW|:|WWWWWWW|:::/WWWWw\::::/######/###/!!###|!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!|WWW|!!!\WWW\:::/WWWWWw|:WWWWWWWW\::\WWWWW\::::####::!!\##!!!!##\!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!vw!w!!!::WWWWww:wWWWWW/:/WWWw::W|::::/WWWWW\::::::::::!!##!!!!##/!!!!!!!!!,,!!!
!!!!!!mmm!!!!!!!!!w!w!!:::\WW/:::\w::w|::W/:|W::W/::::\\WWW//:::::::::::!!##!!!!!!!!!!!!!mMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMmmw:w::::::\w::w:::::::w:w::::::::::::::-!!!!!!!!!mMMMMmMMMMMMM

CURRENT WIN PERCENTAGE::44%

20250531 - Rakdos Outlaws - W4/L3/D0

Notes on Draft

I felt like I got very very lucky this draft, because despite the fact that I was not clear on what I was doing or where I was going Pack 1, in Packs 2 and 3, I got Akul, Jasper Flint, Vial Smahser, At Knifepoint, and Rakdos Joins Up all passed to me. And my rare was Calamity for Pack 2!
There may be some argument that I read the signals from pack one correctly, and thats what had me going into pack 2 with some choice red and black cards which made my descent into Rakdos Outlaws all the easier. But I cannot help but feel as though I struck it rich being (and I checked this afterwards) the only person to have gone in for Red and Black. I don't know if, should someone was in one or both of my colours, that this pack could've gone the same as my last foray into this archetype. I suppose we don't know that and never will.

But here's something I definitely do know, my first five or so picks went really well! Insofar as I snapped up two Consuming Ashes in that time. I barely saw any removal outside of white for the rest of the draft, and those Consuming Ashes truly helped me win some games. Getting in quickly like that is seemingly very very important, because you don't know what the rest of the pool is going to be like, and how plentiful or scarce removal is going to be. I think that is something I find very interesting about draft is that idea of the hidden card pool, though I'll have to do some more thinking to articulate why.

Finally, I did feel my focus slip in the middle of the draft, and I made some suboptimal picks because of that. I fought hard to bring myself back up to speed, but by then I was pretty locked in in what I was doing, and just picked for synergy again out of habit. I think I need to more clearly define this idea of what I'm looking for during this phase, like why is just synergy picking bad if it won me this game? Perhaps I am just trying to question everything I do so I'm not blind to any potential pitfalls. I should try pick EXCLUSIVELY through card evaluation next draft just to avoid synergy as much as possible and see if that makes a better deck.

Summary:
- Find ways to keep your focus up throughout the draft without fail, as it leads to sub par decisions.
- Create a Card Ranking for a set, then go exclusively by that for a draft and see how it performs.
- Picking early removal, even if you are unsure of the colours can be very good if the rest of the pool is lacking in removal. Its good to think about the resources in the pool of draft cards at any one time, that might help you read signals better.

Notes on Deck

Does 'Sticking Bombs' count as a win condition? I need to do some research into win cons of decks to get a clearer idea of what the focus of my deckbuilding should look like. I found that the games where I won were ones my bombs stuck, and games I lost were ones I was unable to get bombs to stay on the board.
This draft was another win for not splashing, I had some blue cards (like Lazav) that might've worked if I splashed, but I found that one of the decks strengths was its focus. I faced off against a Naya deck that got manascrewed twice, so despite the fack my inner Spike and Jane are arguing over "win the game" vs "cool cards!!" avoiding a non worthwhile splash has been very favourable.

Summary:
- (just a quick one but) Research win cons and apply this knowledge in your deckbuilding.

Notes on Gameplay

I went up against a Selesnya mounts deck which absolutely bulldozed me, and outside from the fact that they were counting damage and I wasn't (although I should have been), I think I lost these games because I was unclear on what the inevitable state of the game was, and who was trying to beatdown first.
See, I had thought when playing that I had inevitability, that if I could just do my thing for long enough, and get a bomb down, or a couple rounds of Laughing Jasper Flint, or incremental damage with At Knifepoint and Vialsmasher, then I'd be sure to win. But in actuality, their game plan of 'big trampling creatures that I can't easily kill without removal in hand' was in reality the inevitable deck, despite their damage/creature based strategy. I was the beatdown because I should've been moving to kill them as quickly as possible before their creatures got so big and plentiful I had no chance against them.
Thats a pretty unique evaluation I'm not too upset I didn't make at the time, because it shifts how I've been thinking about beatdown and inevitability to *include* damage based decks. That's a big lesson learnt there, that you can have inevitability with creatures (that's basically what a clock is).

This player did also play quite fast, and so I actually found myself forcing myself to slow down and take the time to think through actions. One time I even stopped the play all together to assess the boardstate and what was in my hand.

Another deck I went up against was running counters and Take Up The Shield, and I found having to play around instants and combat tricks very difficult. The times I got got by Take Up The Shield, I slowed my roll of removal and lost the game for it, only to find out they didn't have an answer in hand. The next game I got countered early on and pumped the breaks on bigger spells, only to finally play one and discover they didn't have it again! Lucky I won the second game there. Although this is a success story, because I think just thinking about what the enemy had in hand is a major step.

Although I was not perfect constantly, and again found my focus slipping mid game and my mind wandering, which ate up time I should've spent assessing the state of the game.

Summary:
- Do some further research into inevitability and determining the beatdown.
- Keep being aware of focus during the game, and maybe find strategies to maintain focus.

20240517 - Dimir Mill - W4/L2/D1

Draft Recap

Despite my first pick (Electrodominance) which made me want to lean into Gruul ramp, and then my second card was Explosive Derailment, I managed to successfully notice that red and green were just not available, and did not hesitate to pivot toward more open colours. I didn't just manage to do this by noticing less red cards, but also by noting that the red cards I was seeing were across the board less powerful than they should've been. In this same way, I saw that black, and eventually blue, was open not just by finding more cards in those colours, but finding especially good cards in those colours being passed my way. I will say that I started paying attention to signals less in packs two and three, given I was comfortable in Dimir at that point, and I should definitely continue to look out for signals throughout the draft.
As the draft continued, I had a clear idea of the deck I was building, and even had a loose idea of what cards the deck was looking for. I remember specifically thinking "I'd love a Desperate Bloodseeker or two here" and splitting up my chosen pile into cards that did crimes and cards that cared about crimes for a bit to make sure I had a good split for both. I was very lucky being passed those two Bloodseekers, as well as finding both Deepmuck Desperado's my deck needed. And while its basically unknowable what the deck would have been like if those had not been in the pool, the fact I was able to identify what the deck I was making needed and picked those cards over others is a great success. I will mention that this idea of the deck was not perfect, and the fact that Dimir Mill is such an easy to put together deck when the right cards come your way, I still think that researching other archetypes and knowing what cards fit best into those is still important.

Summary:
- Keep up the good work with reading signals, and continue to have a really clear idea of what your deck needs as the draft progresses.
- Make sure you are reading signals through the entire draft, not just each pick.
- Ensure that you aren't left in the lurch during a more difficult draft by studying up further on draft archetypes and what cards fit best into them.

Deckbuilding Recap

Whilst I was very much deep in Dimir Mill, I did pick up a few choice black/green cards, and even some good blue/green cards, which game me pause to see if splashing green was worth it. Thinking back on my disasterous Yarus splash some months ago I kept the deck to two colours and was better for it. I decided that what my deck was trying to do worked better when it was focussed, and the green cards I did have did not add to that focus, and instead simply added powerful cards for the sake of power. Whilst this sounds like the same thing I did last time with not having any bombs, this time the addition of Harvester of Misery and Intimidation Campaign (both cards which absolutely won me games) I did actually have the bombs to back up a 'less powerful' and more focussed game plan.
Whilst it was either subconconcious or just unintentional, I managed to build the deck to function both as a control deck that excelled in the long game with cards like Intimidation Campaign or Harvester of Misery (both of these cards do really well in situations where your opponent is down in resources, allowing you to start generating card advantage/hitting hard with menace) and a Mill deck that had enough removal triggered milling to sit back and whittle down Enemy's library. I understand these two ideas go hand in hand, but it meant that the deck could succeed even without any Deepmuck Desperado's in play. All of this however was not what I was thinking of when building, and so the reason I bring it up is to record the idea of being *this* aware during the building of the deck, instead finding out how lucky you were post deckbuilding.

Summary:
- Only splash when absolutely necessary. If you have a good enough game plan in two colours, a third will just muddy the waters.
- Thinking hard about what your deck wants to do and how it wants to win before the games begin is so valuable.

Gameplay Recap

I did a great job of managing to assess the boardstate properly, paying attention to the resources my opponent and I both had and reacting accordingly. I recognised when we were in parody, and when one of us was winning/losing. I found that using my opponents turn to think about this was really helpful, but all my opponents did play quite slowly so I will have to see how I fare against faster players. Speaking of speed, I did note that I found myself playing faster when I was confident in what I was doing. And although I didn't pay for it this draft, I know how dangerous speedy play is. I'll have to make sure I slow down even when excited.
As for specific misplays, I fucked up in one major way during the game, by not mathing out and reading exactly what my cards did and what their cards did. Normally I'd be all like "sowwy can I take dat one back" but good on my opponents for not agreeing to that. That misplay 1000% lost me the game and so I will have to remember to think through every game action I take. (if you're curious, enemy had a 1 toughness creature who was bring buffed by a counter and an equipment. I used Harvester of Misery's -2/-2 on it, and when it didn't die, attempted to bring its toughness low enough with Metamorphic Blast...) Another good thing to remember (which happened in that game) was that attacking, blocking, or tapped creatures are really vunerable to white removal. Multiple times my Deepmuck Desperado's got caught because I went in for an opportunistic attack or block and the crab was cooked. This is just another reminder, like last week, to have your knowledge of combat tricks on lock.
Finally, to end on a posistive note, I knew I was the control deck in basically every matchup, which meant I was actively making plays to keep the game going longer. Even if I was losing on board, I would choose a line of play to prolong the game, because I recognised that my deck won with card advantage more than anything else. That 'who's the beatdown' article and the idea of 'Inevitability' are such good pieces of advice for this game, very glad I came across them.

Summary:
- Go up against some faster opponents and try to keep your cool when they or you are speeding up play.
- Think through lines of play to avoid punting.
- Keep that idea in your head of inevitability.

20240503 - Rakdos Midrange - W0/L6/D0

Errors During Game

So, so many more misplays in these games than in the last draft. From making incorrect land drops to keeping one land hands giddily because I was on a losing streak and had lost morale. But the main misplay I want to focus on revolves around board awareness.
Here's the situation: I've just gotten out my second boneyard desecrator and have a removal spell in hand, along with some other less relevant cards. This is game 2 of round two and probably the first chance I have felt like I had a shot at winning, so I'm getting excited. Enemy has taken a few hits previously, and if I can gain some advantage now and keep drawing cards, I should be able to consistently answer their threats and move forward to the win. Enemy has two creatures, both unfavourable to attack into, but I feel like I see the play. I swing in with both desecrators, and after enemy declares blocks on one, I sack the other desecrator to the blocked one, making it big enough to win combat after I removal spell the bigger blocker. Enemy, with enough mana open, plays Smuggler's Surprise, making his creatures hexproof and indestructible. Im out a removal spell and two creatures, and enemy is down just one combat trick.
Now two things were at fault here. Number one, the obvious, was being aware of counterplays and combat tricks that shut me down. I think a bit of study on those is a very good idea, so I have them in my head when playing. The second, less obvious issue, was my pacing. This happens to me quite frequently during games, but I find myself speeding up as the opponent speeds up. Making plays faster, making landdrops faster, assessing the boardstate faster, even speaking faster. But haste here is the enemy. Where my opponents may be able to assess what is happening at that speed, I am certainly not able to, and thus I begin to play much worse when mirroring opponents like this. Interestingly, against slower players, I do slow down, and thus take longer to calculate moves as a result. Its hard to judge if I played any better in these games, but my point still stands. I need to be pacing myself in these games, with deliberacy and intention. I need to assess the boardstate and the resource war every turn, no matter how long it takes. Even if I am playing a fast deck, I do not want to make my plays fast.
Just remember; "Speed is a lie the untrained mind tells itself. If you try to pursue speed, all you will accomplish is haste".

Summary and future improvement:
- Try to play at your own pace, and not match your opponent. This will help with your awareness of the gamestate and give you more time to make decisions.
- Do some study of combat tricks in different encounters and be aware of them when playing the game.

Errors During Drafting

I got a bit blindsighted by my first rare, which was Transmutation Font. This is a card that fits very nicely into a commander deck I own and I'd been hoping to pick up. I am not sure why, but I picked that card and then basically ignored the fact that I had it for the rest of the draft. Now admittedly its not a great limited card, in fact just having a look at that mini set it might be one of the worst of the Big Score cards for limited. However, the fact that I didn't even try to make it work meant that I basically didn't get a pack one pick one, which is obviously not good. I think if there's one thing I can take away from this draft specifically its that power matters, and you should make every pick count.
Once again I found it very hard to recognise what colours were and weren't open, and found it difficult to pivot. After the draft and when looking at everyone's decks I saw that a lot of the Rakdos bombs that my deck would have enjoyed were in the hands of other players, and it was with that knowledge I looked back on the draft and thought "oh yeah I saw basically no bombs in these colours". Players also noted that there was not a lot of blue in the pool and again, something I only realised after having been made aware. I think that doing some research on how to pick up signals is worthwhile.
Despite my previous draft notes, I once again found myself going into autopilot during the draft. Perhaps even moreso than last time. I'm not sure why I basically switched off, but there has to be a way to warm up and get myself in the headspace to draft properly. This lack of thought led to a draft where I was not paying attention to the cards I was putting in my deck, and was essentially deciding on cards based on what I remember having been mentioned in previous podcasts as good, before moving lazily into cards I liked the look of in my colours. I would say that this time I swung much too far in the "good" cards as opposed to having any synergy at all. A balance is necessary there, and also a recontextualising of what is "good" in the deck you're putting together. Which brings me to my last point of being unable to hold a fluid idea of the deck in my mind as I was drafting.
What I would like to try, some point between now and my next draft, is researching each colour pair, and then each colour pair and a few choice splashes, and take a look at all of the cards in the set and see which cards fit where. I have been listening to a few Limited Podcasts and they all speak about existing decks, saying things like "card x goes best in this deck" or "this deck wants these cards". I never really understood that, but now I think deck actually means archetype. And you should be trying to discover and build toward archetypes. I'm going to take a page out of the book of another drafter I saw there and put together a little cheat sheet on archetypes, cards those archetypes want, and splashable options those cards can dip into.

Summary and future improvement:
- Power matters, and so every pick should matter. This includes suboptimal big score cards which shouldn't be ignored.
- Research how signals work in drafts and put that knowledge into practice.
- Brainstorm ways to 'warm up' to drafting, so you aren't zoning out during the draft.
- Try to find a balance between cards you think are good, and synergistic pieces.
- Research archetypes and use this knowledge when drafting to pick cards that go good in the deck you're making.

Errors During Building

This draft is proof to me that there is a reason we spell BREAD with a B at the front. I completely overestimated Boneyard Desecrator as a bomb, and thought it alone enough a win con. My overhyping of this card came from a previous game where it performed really well in a mono black deck. But this is obviously not the greatest bomb, let alone the greatest card, and it was my reliance on these when (drafting and) building that let to a big weakness of my deck. Both the early commitment to my colours (turning away from differently coloured rares) and my initial pick being a colourless, difficult to build around artifact, meant that I was at a disadvantage to bomby rares. I felt this a lot during the game, when I had a lot of removal to play around with, but even after clearing out the board there was nothing for me to build up to, and my opponent eventually rebuilt and took me down (there's also something to be said that in two of the rounds I was up against Terror of the Peaks and Vaultborn Tyrant, both creatures really resistant to removal of the destroy and damage kind, which is what I had in Rakdos, but that's neither here nor there cuz I can't control it).

Summary and future improvement:
- Be prepared to pick bombs over anything else, and make them work later.
- Estimate cards properly by making a tier list of the uncommons and rares.

20240419 - Grixis Intimidation Campaign - W3/L3/D1

Errors During Game

I wasn't able to correctly asses drawing a card vs having a body on the field. This is an issue of me not understanding the role I was playing and not understanding the resources on board.
Also noticed in game it was hard to identify what state the board was in (parody, inevitability, ect). A few times when losing I did have the thought "whats the card that gets me out of this jam right now", but that way of thinking is pretty basic. I think I should be thinking about what card*s* can help me out in this situation, and how can I get to them. Did have one misplay where I mistapped lands and didnt have the correct colour of mana for an instant that cost me some damage.

Summary and future improvement
- Found it hard to assess the board whilst playing the game, need to work on seeing the game as states during play.
- When in the losing state, was thinking "what card gets me out of this jam" and not "what cards can I draw right now to help balance the board"

Errors During Drafting

Felt I was slipping into old habits of drafting synergistically, without awareness of what cards were actually good or not. Only once when I was unsure what to pick, I went by the BREAD acronym. I do not want to use that card evaluation as a last resort when I can't think of what to pick, but it should be the first thing I look for. Were a few times where I wasnt sure what to pick, and just grabbed something from my colours instead of thinking further on it.
I was surprised by the Expansion Cards (cuz a lot were at lower rarity than I expected, and seemed to be pretty relevant to the decks in the draft) and was unsure what I should be doing with them. So I pulled two Intimidation Campaigns, but I really only pulled them cuz I thought they were good cards. Not because I had a deck in mind I was building around. To put that another way, I was picking a synergistic pile of cards, instead of building a deck. To improve, I want to think of my deck holistically as I am pulling cards, and hold in my mind the fluid concept of the deck that I am actively adding cards to and that is changing this way and that depending on what I add. I theorise that this is why having prepared card picks and rankings is useful, because it alleviates you of the responsibility of evaluating cards WHILE you're attempting to build this deck, so if you see a good black card and the deck in your head is black you just go 'yup cool got it moving on'.
I found it very hard to pivot. During this draft I felt as though I couldnt see a lot of crime-activated cards. And that that point I was really in red and black and felt as tho I should move off. But I was not super aware of that as the packs were being passed around in kind of a high stress environment, and felt like I was passing cards that were better if I decided to pivot into another strategy, but would impulse pick cards based not on what I was reading in the signals, but falling back into "get the synergistic thing". I did end up going into blue which was a bit more open, but that was only because my pack 2 began with a Geralf, the Fleshwright, and I began picking "second spell matters" cards for a bit there, which I think ended up hurting my deck a lot more.
Reading signals is really hard tho cuz youre looking for a pattern of absences.

Summary and future improvement
- Was picking a synergistic pile instead of a deck. Need to work on holding an idea of a deck in mind during the draft.
- Resorted to card ranking only when I was unsure on what to pick, when I should be ranking (or have ranked) everything I'm looking at.
- Found it very difficult to pivot off of my strategy when I felt it drying up. I need to practice being more aware and reactive of signals.

Errors during Building

I pulled two Rakdos deserts, and felt as tho I needed fixing in the 3 colour deck, and so included 2 Silver Deputies in my initial build to find me these two deserts consistently. But the issue there was that the deck SHOULD have been built around Deadeye Duelist and intimidation Campaign. What I was thinking abt w the IC's was that "I'll run these sheriffs who can find me a crime land so I can trigger IC" not realising that the two DD's were MUCH more impactful to the game in the long run. This leads into a much bigger issue during building in that the intimidation campaigns and running my opponent out with card advantage was not my wincon initially. My first idea was that I was more of an outlaws beatdown deck were I'd temper creatures early and then win in the midrange. But my cards for doing that (like the Sheriffs) were just plain worse that the IC plan. In order to account for this 'grixis outlaws midrange' I cut some removal and protection spells from the deck to make way for these sheriffs and other beatdown-y cards (idk what those were some attacking creatures).
The issue here is clear. With what I had built, I wanted to be control, but I cut controlling cards from my deck in service of a demonstrably worse beatdown deck which didnt plan on looping the two Intimidation Campaigns and instead wanted to commit crimes to swing in with advantage. All of this I realised after I had lost the first two games, which means this deckbuilding error lost me those first two games.

Summary and future improvement
- I didn't evaluate my cards correctly when building and went for a weaker build than what the cards wanted to do. In future, I'll need to be more aware of where cards excel and what type of deck I can build that has the best chance of wining.